The Last Bullet
by Master-Magician
Summary: The scream that tore from Piper's throat was so loud that it drowned out the sounds of the ghouls trying to get in. It contained so much raw sorrow and pain, that even the creatures outside the room ceased their attempts to enter for several long moments.


**I have honestly no idea where this came from, just something I felt like doing. Fair warning, I was going for tragedy here. And I like to think I showed no mercy.**

 **It does occur to me I have a skewed view on the rating system, so if anyone thinks this should be rated higher than T, please let me know so I can fix it.**

 **Enjoy**.

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"Come on Blue!" Piper wasn't screaming the words per se. But she was dangerously close. "Stay with me here!"

They needed to move faster, but Nathaniel having a gunshot wound in his stomach was slowing them down. The only reason the man was even on his feet was because of the arm slung over Piper's shoulders, his other was busy trying to slow the bleeding. It was getting harder and harder for him to walk straight, his stumbling was growing worse with each second.

"Shit!" Piper hisses when the approaching growls started getting closer. The feral ghouls were catching up a lot quicker than Piper would have liked. They needed to find that damn exit.

There had to be at least two dozen of the mutant freaks nipping at their heels. If Nathaniel wasn't critically injured, the two would be mounting a running battle instead of an outright flight.

Clean out a pack of feral ghouls from an office building, that was the original goal. Nothing all that different from what her and Nathaniel had done several times before. Bit more ghouls than normal but they could have handled it. In fact, it went well at first. They had gotten in through a back entrance and killed several before they even woke up. Everything went perfectly according to plan.

Until they found that goddamn locked door.

While Piper's curiosity was the stuff of legend, Nathaniel's own ranked right up there with hers. The man never could resist a locked door or cabinet. He really should have passed up on this one.

It was all Piper's fault, that was what she kept telling herself at least. Nathaniel picked the lock within moments, but it was Piper herself who wanted to open the door.

They had both missed it at first, Piper didn't see the door was rigged until the damage was already done.

The only warning Piper got was when Nathaniel cried out her name and pushed her away from the doorway. She could still hear the gunshot and Nathaniel's yell of pain in her mind no matter how hard she tried to block it out.

Nothing in her life could have prepared Piper for the sight that greeter her when she turned back around. Nathaniel lay on the floor with a nasty bullet wound in his gut, blood already pouring from the injury. Piper was at her boyfriend's side in an instant.

Every ghoul in the building must have heard the shot too because within a minute the bastards were crawling out of the woodwork. Piper tried to hold their position but after gunning several down realized there were far too many. So she did the only thing she could think of.

Grabbed Nathaniel by the arm and dragged him off the floor to his feet before the bulk of the horde could descend on them. Nathaniel hid his pain well, but Piper could tell just how much agony he was in. If she wasn't so focused on getting him to safety, she'd be apologizing a thousand times over for jostling him so much.

They had to abandon Nathaniel's rifle in their haste, but Piper held his shotgun in her spare arm. Between that and just their handguns, they were in dire straits if they didn't get to the exit soon.

Turning a corner, Piper caught sight of a ghoul rushing straight for them. Aiming was impossible, but thanks to the tight confines of the hall, the shotgun blast Piper fired from the hip was good enough to bring it down.

The ghoul was killed, but its momentum was too strong to stop. It's corpse barreled into Piper and Nathaniel and knocked both clear off their feet.

Piper shoved the body off them and scrambled to pull Nathaniel back up again but a second ghoul came from an adjacent hall and pounced on her. She moved her arm at the last second before the thing could bite a chunk of flesh off her. Cracking it across the jaw with the butt of the shotgun, she fired another shot into its face pointblank.

Piper barely felt the splash of the foul blood splattering all over her, her attention was caught more on a third ghoul already advancing on them. She fired two more shots that struck it's arm and chest, but it wasn't stopping.

"Fuck!" Piper snarled when the gun clicked empty. Throwing the shotgun at the ghouls legs might not have been the best choice, but it did cause it to trip and fall flat on its face. By the time it got back up, Piper and drawn her handgun and emptied the clip into it.

Again, not the most tactically smart decision since she was already running low on ammunition from her attempted stand a short while ago. But Piper couldn't help it, she was starting to panic. Nathaniel was bleeding to death and they not only were not at the door yet, Piper didn't know where they were. She must have taken a wrong turn trying to get away from the ghouls.

Just as Piper was helping Nathaniel back up, there was another chorus of sounds behind her. Piper never got the chance to raise he weapon though. Nathaniel had drawn his own pistol and unloaded on their pursuers.

Not waiting to see what was coming, Piper simply just pulled Nathaniel down the hall to resume their escape.

Piper stopped cold when they came to a large cafeteria like room filled with ghouls, at least twenty total.

All staring at Piper and Nathaniel like they were dinner.

The only reason the two managed to get even a few steps away was that in their hurry to get to the two humans, the ghouls had all tripped each other trying to cross the room.

"How many ghouls are in this building!" Piper whispered under her breath as she evaluated their options. Both paths were cut off, they had nowhere left to go.

"Piper." Nathaniel groaned, his breathing ragged. "Over there."

The reporter followed where he was pointing and found another doorway.

"Don't be locked, don't be locked, don't be locked." Piper repeated the words like a mantra as her hand reached for the doorknob. She all but knocked it down when she found that it wasn't.

Nathaniel was barely able to stand now, Piper had to literally drag him inside. Once in, she took in what they found. The door being unlocked must have used up all their luck. It was only a large storage closet with several shelves lined with office supplies and a desk in the corner. It was still better than nothing.

Leaving Nathaniel leaning against the wall, Piper pushed the desk, the shelving, and every piece of furniture she could move up against the door to make a barricade. If they had just a little bit more good fortune, the ghouls would walk right by their hiding place. If not... Piper tried not to think about it.

A heavy thud from behind her made Piper whip around to find Nathaniel had collapsed to the floor.

"Blue!" Rushing over to him, Piper turned him on his back and had to stifle her gasp. The entire front of his leather armor and coat were stained deep red, the blood pouring forth even faster now.

As if it could get any worse, she was wrong about where he'd been shot. It wasn't his stomach, it was his chest. How he had been able to run so far and even shoot his gun, was beyond her.

"Just hold on." Piper shoved both her hands to the wound in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. "You're going to be fine, hang in there Blue."

Despite her attempts, the warm and sticky fluid was passing between her fingers. Piper pulled her red trench coat off so fast the fabric almost ripped. Pressing the garment to the wound, Piper's gaze combed over the room for any kind of first aid kid they could use.

Finding one on the far wall, Piper moved Nathaniel's hands to hold the coat in place while she bolted for the white box. Tearing the lid off, she was horrified to find all it contained was a single syringe of Med-X. She would have preferred a stimpack, hell maybe even psycho would have helped, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

With the syringe in hand, Piper returned to Nathaniel and injected him with the needle before resuming her place keeping pressure on the wound. But wasn't long before the coat was soaked through as well.

It took several minutes for Piper to notice Nathaniel had closed his eyes while she was going for the first aid box. Now she was noticing both that and his chest wasn't moving.

"Hey Blue, kinda a bad time to take a nap." Piper's voice broke as she gently shook him. "Come on, wake up."

No response.

"You're not going to seriously leave me in a building of ghouls while you sleep the day away are you?" Piper smiled as a single tear ran down her cheek. "Not very chivalrous of you to leave all the problems to the lady."

Piper didn't even bother looking behind her when she heard the sound of bodies banging against the door. Not even when the animalistic sounds outside the room seemed to have reached a fever pitch.

The ghouls found them.

Piper took quick inventory of their remaining weapons, swallowing down the lump in her throat in the process. Her pistol was empty, and her last clip was nowhere to be found. All that left was Nathaniel's own handgun.

"I need to borrow this." Piper reached across the limp man to pull the weapon free from its holster. She made absolute sure to keep at least one hand to slow her boyfriend's bleeding. Piper wasn't sure how she felt upon learning the gun only had one round in the chamber left.

Drawing a hand across her brow to wipe the sweat away, Piper accidentally smeared Nathaniel's blood all over her face. But she barely noticed it.

"I need you to wake up." Piper shook him a little harder this time. "They're going to be getting in any minute now." As if to punctuate her words, there was a loud screech as a portion of her impromptu barricade gave way just a little. "I need some help."

Still no response.

"Hey, if you sleep too much, you're going to miss date night when we get back to Diamond City. I haven't got a chance to wear that red dress you bought me." Piper normally was pretty indifferent about things like dresses and jewelry.

If Piper was honest with herself, she was wondering what it actually felt like. So she had promised Nathaniel the next time they went out on the town in Diamond City she'd wear it while they went dancing. All Nathaniel had to do was give her a smile and ask and she was mush in his hands.

It was going to be a little hard to keep that promise if Nathaniel didn't get up and help her with the horde about break the door down.

The tears were coming down Piper's cheeks rapidly now, the drops of moisture falling down to land on her blood covered hands.

It was like everything clicked in place at once. Nathaniel's blood all over her face and hands. The fact that he wasn't breathing anymore. Piper's mind caught up to her senses all at once and something deep inside her snapped.

"Get up you selfless bastard!" Piper screamed as she pounded her fists into Nathaniel's unmoving chest. "You don't get to make me love you, save my life, then check out!" She struck him again and again, as if in some vain hope she could beat him back to life.

Piper's words made her heart skip a beat. She... she'd never told Nathaniel she'd loved him. It was always implied but she had never actually said the words out loud. He had, on several occasions, but she didn't. Something had always held her back without her knowing it.

"Nathan..." Piper bit back her sobs, she never used his real name. He was always Blue, a nickname at first but it had turned into her special name just for him. No one but Piper was allowed to use it. "I love you, I love you, now please... get up." Piper begged but no amount of begging was going to change what happened.

Nathaniel was gone.

The scream that tore from Piper's throat was so loud that it drowned out the sounds of the ghouls trying to get in. It contained so much raw sorrow and pain, that even the creatures outside the room ceased their attempts to enter for several long moments.

Piper had given up trying to hold back her tears of anguish and now cried her eyes out, her cheek resting on Nathaniel's bloody chest.

She couldn't even feel the fresh blood anymore, she couldn't feel anything. Her entire body, as well as most of her mind had gone completely numb. Almost all of Piper's whole world had come crashing down in a single afternoon.

Piper's hollow and unfocused eyes looked over her shoulder. Only when she saw the arm of a ghoul pushed through the door, the barely standing barricade stopping anything further, did she remember their original predicament.

Glancing down to Nathaniel's pistol in her hands, the sliver that remained of Piper's mind drifted back to her sister Nat. As she usually did when leaving the city for long periods, Piper had asked Nick Valentine and his assistant Ellie to check in on her regularly.

As the ghouls upper body wormed its way through the door, Piper understood that she would never be seeing her sister again in this life.

Leaning down to press one last kiss to Nathaniel's bloodied lips, Piper took his hand in hers before turning to face the ghouls just as the last of the blockage was knocked away.

"You can't have me." Piper's voice had lost all emotion, becoming completely monotone very much like a courser synth. Her eyes missing all previous luster, having turned into empty pits.

There was little to no hesitation as Piper pressed the cool barrel of the gun to her temple, and pulled the trigger.

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 **This ended up being a lot easier than I expected it to be. If I made you cry, I'd call this a mission accomplished. Let me know how I did.**


End file.
